


Just The Way I Feel

by Phrenotobe



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: F/F, Hinata has a walk on appearance but I didn't want to tag him in the fic and cause disappointment, Love Confessions, POV Alternating, POV Third Person, Post-Game(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-13 05:14:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14742632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phrenotobe/pseuds/Phrenotobe
Summary: It’s the warm evening of another summer festival and the wars are slowly fading into the past, as much as people will let it. Autumn is creeping in, day by day, and bright lanterns wait to be lit when the blue skies finally shed their light. Oboro is drawing in the scents and styles of other cultures from across Hoshido, and Rinkah is beside her. She hasn’t left Oboro’s side in several minutes, and fidgets constantly with the tassels that hang on her hip.





	Just The Way I Feel

It's the warm evening of another summer festival and the wars are slowly fading into the past, as much as people will let it. Autumn is creeping in, day by day, and bright lanterns wait to be lit when the blue skies finally shed their light. Oboro is drawing in the scents and styles of other cultures from across Hoshido, and Rinkah is beside her. Now that the flame tribe has started communicating more with the royal family, she has a reason to stay there and seems to be attempting to not make the most of it. She hasn't left Oboro's side in several minutes, and fidgets constantly with the tassels that hang on her hip.

Oboro likes Rinkah's official outfit. The white waistcoat gleams with gold thread, and the shoulders are heavy with embroidery that evokes the sacred flame. Rinkah wears the fabric like fine armor, relaxed but on guard. Oboro wants to handle that waistcoat and find out how it works, to trace the needlework with her fingertips until she can draw it for herself.  
"You can get some food if you like," Oboro reassures her, "I'll be fine."  
"No thanks," Rinkah manages stiffly.

Rinkah folds her arms loosely across her chest. The music on the air has turned soft, and she doesn't seem to be enjoying it. As Oboro turns the corner, she meets an old friend. Hinata’s rambunctious nature shines even when he’s still, and he glances at her kimono for a short few seconds, taking in the sight before breaking into a smile.  
"Congratulations!" He says, "Are you thinking about kids?"  
Oboro laughs. She hasn't yet, not in any big way. Rinkah's cheeks go red with anger.

"What's that supposed to mean?" She challenges him, "That's none of your business!"  
Hinata tips his chin in a look of surprise.  
“Aw gee, Rinkah, I’m just curious. Oboro is my friend.”  
Oboro pats his arm, and Hinata moves onward, still half grinning with a concerned notch in his brow.  
Rinkah's cheeks are red with lingering irritation and what might be the frequent flush of embarrassment. Oboro's cheeks are pink too, but she doesn't mention it, reaching for Rinkah's tight fist and teasing it open slowly like stubbornly knotted silk. Her fingers stay there, sitting in the purlicue of Rinkah's thumb.

"Don't mind him," Oboro says, "He hadn't seen me in a while."

"Congratulations?" Rinkah manages, "I don't like it. What did he mean? You're not different. You have the shop..?"  
Oboro nods, gently tugging Rinkah toward the nearest food cart to sit.  
"I'll pay," she says with good humour.  
"No," Rinkah says, "I will."

  
The food cart is brightly coloured, but the shapes are weathered by privation and time. Oboro asks for her favourites for herself and adds a bit of what Rinkah loves. Rinkah always finishes her food at double speed, and then glances hungrily around for more that she'd never outright ask to take.

"Let me spend a little on an ambassador," Oboro says, "I'll get some merit with King Ryoma."  
Rinkah mumbles something Oboro doesn't catch, but lets it happen. She's forward on the seat, elbows on the counter. After a moment she wriggles around to pull up one leg and sit.  
"Thanks," she says, "I mean it."  
The bowl is served up and Rinkah digs in, seemingly relieved to not talk further.  
"How are things back home?" Oboro asks.  
Rinkah lifts her head, her mouth half-full of noodles. She swallows, and pulls a grimace.  
"My aunt thinks I'm not ready for chieftainship. Thinks I need to be married off to somebody who 'banks my fire' for me."  
She pulls another chunk of noodles from the bowl and hooks a piece of steak with her chopsticks after thinking better of doing it with her fingers.  
"Oh," Oboro says, "How odd."  
"Yeah."  
Rinkah's voice is flat and curt, but she gives Oboro a sidelong glance before drawing out another piece of meat on her chopsticks.  
"I practised," Rinkah said, "so you wouldn't be embarrassed by me."  
  
Oboro is touched, but she tries not to smile too much. Rinkah holds the meat over the broth, watching it drip into the bowl.  
"I like my own company, but maybe I could do with somebody to come home to. A dog perhaps? But I suppose that's less meat for me."  
Oboro lays her hand over Rinkah's arm.  
"This is the most I've seen you talk all day."  
Rinkah's eyebrows disappear under her fringe, hidden behind the ceremonial mask plate that covers it.  
"It's not hard when it's you. You're almost flame tribe already. Papa asked when you're coming back and he never wants outsiders to visit."

Rinkah glances down, but doesn't try to shake off Oboro's arm. Oboro retreats back into her own space a moment later. Her noodles are getting cool.

For a moment she thinks of explaining that playing with food is also frowned upon, but Rinkah's infraction isn't so major. After all, she'd met Takumi when he was young enough to pull all the carrots out of his meals. It had gone without notice longer than anybody expected, because Hinata ate them for him.

Oboro stares into her meal without seeing it, pulling the vegetables to one side and the meat to the other. She takes a bit of both and reaches for some seasoning. Before she knows it, she's found her way to the bottom of the bowl, and Rinkah is looking at her with a curious expression that could be admiration.

"Hey," Rinkah says, "That was great!"  
"Thanks," Oboro says. She turns to the shopkeep and digs into her purse to pay. Rinkah's arm shoots out to offer her own money, and the man behind the counter hesitates before smiling warmly.

"Splitting the bill, ladies?" He asks, before reaching out and pulling a few bits of silver from Rinkah's hand and removing a gold note from Oboro's.

"Yeah," Rinkah says, "Uh. Yes."  
She pulls her hand back and tucks it away, pinking in the face. Her flush blurs the evenly drawn lines on her cheeks.  
"Madam," he says to Oboro, "I hope to see you again soon."

Rinkah's expression turns sour when she hears it, but she says nothing, the hot meal in her belly helping her to keep her tongue. When they're finally outside, she's ready to talk.

"Okay, come on," she says, "you're not suddenly an old maid."  
"No," Oboro says, "It's something else."  
Oboro takes her hand and leads Rinkah through the stalls, to the end of the path. There is a too-convenient little alcove hidden at the corner crux between a stall selling wooden toys and a chocolatier attempting to hawk small birds made of sugar. Oboro turns sideways, slips through the narrow gap and disappears. Rinkah follows.

  
\--

The square patch of earth is dark and quiet, almost invisible from outside. Oboro brushes down her kimono, patting her collar to feel if it has slipped, hand lingering at the tucked sash around her middle. That done, she comes forward to fuss and fix Rinkah too.

Her collarbone is level with Rinkah's eyes, barely visible between the fold of her clothes. Rinkah's mouth goes dry at the thought of putting her fingers into the hollow and dragging the collar until it sits low and slack. She lets herself go limp as Oboro pushes the mask further back on her forehead, running fingers through the thick dandelion fluff of her fringe. If it was somebody else, Rinkah might've bit them.

Rinkah feels her jacket being fixed on her shoulders, the careful touch of a hand that doesn't wait too long or linger too much. Her whole attention is on the line of Oboro's throat. When Oboro's fingertips touch the bare skin of Rinkah's middle as a precursor to fixing her belt, Rinkah feels like it burns.

Rinkah tries to speak, but she drips slushy nonsense when she first tries. Her hands come around to grasp Oboro’s wrists. Though Oboro’s hands lift away, Rinkah pulls them back to press against her abdomen. She wants more of her, not less.

“I think your belt is fine,” Oboro murmurs, tilting her head.  
Rinkah’s hand curls around Oboro’s, reaching out with her other one to touch the wide band around Oboro’s waist, digging her fingers into the soft knot that barely shows above it. Words have lost her, again.

Last year Oboro was brilliant orange and purple, and the blue of a perfect flame. Petals scattered like constellations around her hems. Her colours have drained to soft yellows and blue like a dawn sky, touched with modest pinks to pull it all together. Oboro has gold rings on the third finger of each hand.

“I don’t know Hoshido like you,” Rinkah says, “I don’t know what changed.”

“I wanted to focus on things I cared about,” Oboro says, "I need to focus on my work... So I started dressing that way."  
Rinkah can't force the expression from her face. It scrunches her nose up and pops her lower lip forward, and she feels like a child for being envious.

"So you're getting serious," Rinkah says, and wonders how to fix Oboro's outfit the way she fixed her own.

She spreads her hands, letting go with her fingertips hovering inches from Oboro's waist. She's perfect, all the way through. Rinkah glances away, staring fiercely through the back of the canvas tents. Her arms fold over her chest.

"Sounds lonely," she says, "but i can respect that."  
Rinkah tosses her head.  
"I know how it is. Being alone and by choice. People like to interfere. They think being alone isn't good enough. That you need something else."

Rinkah's shoulders scrunch up.  
"So... Anyway... When you need to be alone with somebody. Just... be with me."

She takes a step back, her guard dropping as she looks around for the gap they both came through. She’s said enough, and it’s useless to babble on. Oboro is doing what she wants, and she respects that. She just wishes that Oboro’s request for peace didn’t make her feel like she’s lost a friend.

Oboro takes Rinkah’s hand.  
Rinkah’s attention swings around on the pivot, her other hand clenching and rising reflexively. She lowers it, drawing in a deep, lovesick breath.

“I’m fine too,” Rinkah tries to reassure her. It hurts cold and tight inside her chest when Oboro lifts her hand and kisses her fingers.  
“Why’d you do that, anyway?” she chokes out.  
Oboro gives her a tender smile. Even in the shade, nobody has ever looked as good.

Oboro doesn’t want to answer the question in any clear kind of way. She pulls the ring from her right hand, testing the size as she fits it over the top of Rinkah’s fingers, first the forefinger, then the middle finger, finally sliding it down onto the second-smallest digit of her left.  
“I’d like to be with you,” she says.

Rinkah tears out of Oboro’s gentle grip. She can’t even be alone properly. She wants to yell, caught between ‘no’ and ‘please’.  
“You’re married to something else,” her mouth snaps. Her whole body tenses up, waiting for a retort. It doesn’t come.

Oboro just looks sad. She pulls herself in neatly, tucking in her elbows and straightening her spine, her hands brushing down and then folded over the front of her skirts. Rinkah still wants to take down Oboro’s carefully arranged hair, wants to drag on the perfect angles of her collar, to ruffle the perfection and beauty that Oboro keeps around herself and impress some kind of roughness to the whole thing. She doesn’t know why. She just needs it. She wants Oboro to look real.

“Besides!” Rinkah says, her voice rising even though she wishes it didn’t, “If you want to be with me, just do it! I’m right here!”  
Oboro dips her head to laugh, her hand coming up to cover her mouth. She rubs at her cheek as she does, wiping away a tear that darkens the fabric behind her cuff. Rinkah can’t tell why that is funny, but crying isn’t what she expected either.

Rinkah touches the gold ring on her hand with her thumb, gritting her teeth.  
“This,” she says, lifting her hand with her knuckles outward to show the gold ring gleaming against her skin, “What did you do it for? Do you think it’s a joke? This is how people get married in the flame tribe! We jump over a fire and we promise to be together, because we mean it!”  
She draws her hand further toward her face, noticing an overlooked detail. The gold band has an engraved symbol on it, like a stylized flame.  
“Because we mean it,” she mumbles, feeling like a fool.

“I do mean it,” Oboro says calmly. She’s brushing another tear away, but she’s smiling too. She makes a sound halfway between a giggle and a hiccup. Rinkah finds it maddening.

“Give me your hand,” Rinkah demands. Oboro delivers it. Rinkah has to take a minute just to hold it, just to get used to it. It is comforting to have and fits just right.

“Do you want to be with me?” Oboro asks softly. Her voice wavers slightly. She gives Rinkah her other hand too, freely, wrapping it around her knuckles.

“I don’t know,” Rinkah says, though her heart feels so tight that it hurts, because it wants to say yes and her gut won’t settle but it agrees with her heart too. Her other hand goes over Oboro’s. Now they’re all out of spare hands.

“I think,” Rinkah says, turning her head, “If I had to pick anybody, it would be you.”

There are better axioms and analogies to use, and nicer words to say. The sacred flame burns inside every member of the Flame tribe, and to bank a fire is to tame it, bring it low, and then help it burn bright again at the start of a new day. Rinkah never thought being brought low and quiet would be something she ever wanted.

“I want to,” she says, trying to be as plain as possible, “I’m sorry for making you cry. I never want to do it again.”

Oboro lets out a little sob, and Rinkah reaches up to thumb at the wet tracks on her face, pulling the moisture away. She’s never regretted having a mouth more than this.

“I’m going to cry a lot if we do this properly,” Oboro says. At this rate, Rinkah might just start bawling too. Rinkah shakes her head, putting her hand up to fit on the angle of Oboro’s jaw. Her thumb gently presses against the dip beneath the hard edge of her cheek. Oboro turns her head to fit against Rinkah’s hand, closing her eyes. She tries not to, but pulls in a jagged sniff.

“Most people thought that I got married,” Oboro explains again, more because she’s calmed by talking it all through than anything else, “A woman my age can’t look gaudy if she’s married. I put all my most colourful clothes away...”

Rinkah chuffs a laugh. It had already crossed her mind, but the uncertainty of not knowing to whom and when had bothered her. Now that she knows, she’s made up to trust her for the rest of her life.

“Take them out again,” Rinkah says, “Please, Oboro. When I show my wife to my family again, they have to see you at your best.” 


End file.
